Screenshot of: syriadeeply.org / syriadeeply.org

by Rem Rieder, USA TODAY

by Rem Rieder, USA TODAY

Well, not physically. But Setrakian, the force behind the immersive website Syria Deeply, is going to next apply her laser-focused, in-depth approach to news coverage to the Arctic and its melting ice caps.

This summer, at the peak of the melting season, Setrakian and her colleagues will launch Arctic Deeply. The project is backed by the World Policy Institute, a New York City-based think thank.

The issue, she says, is one of "ticking criticality."

Setrakian, a former correspondent for ABC News and Bloomberg TV, is an evangelist for the notion of the comprehensive, authoritative single-topic news outlet, a technique she finds ideal for the digital era.

In addition to starting the highly regarded Syria Deeply in December 2012, Setrakian is engaged in a research project on the concept at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.

Setrakian sees these sites as an ideal way to shed light on subjects that are undercovered by the rest of the media, often because they are too complex, too expensive or both.

Syria Deeply has provided a powerful one-stop shopping venue, with a mix of original reporting, aggregation of what others are reporting, historical context, data visualization, op-eds and much more.

With its success, Setrakian has been approached by people suggesting she adapt her approach to their pet subjects. Among the contenders were Myanmar Deeply and Alzheimer's Deeply.

So, why Arctic Deeply? Setrakian says she and her colleagues were swayed by the dire nature of the impact of climate change and the fact that "no one in Washington has an Arctic consciousness." Plus, there's the fact that the United States assumes the chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2015.

Right about now you're saying, "There's an Arctic Council? Why wasn't I informed?" And that's part of the point. Setrakian says those melting icecaps meet the criteria of parent News Deeply that the issues its initiatives tackle are underreported as well as critically important.

"We're nerds," Setrakian says. "We actually made a matrix" with the dueling potential subjects before making the call.

Setrakian's devotion to the deep dive developed when the then-Dubai-based journalist was covering the uprising in Iran in 2009. There were few reporters on the Iran beat, and Setrakian found herself a "primary source" on the subject, adding, "I made myself known among the Twitterati."

She saw there was a clearly defined group of people intensely interested in the subject. Instead of a geographic audience, it was an audience bound together by topic.

When the Arab Spring erupted, Setrakian felt the media were largely missing the story, "flitting from one country to the other." And after the overthrow of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, she says, much of the press "kind of lost interest."

She adds, "Syria came last, and got the least attention." The situation, in her view, was "really consequential, and barely comprehensible."

Thus was born Syria Deeply, "a vertical platform that would go wildly in-depth." The day it launched, the website Fast Company headlined a story, "SYRIA DEEPLY OUTSMARTS THE NEWS, REDEFINES CONFLICT COVERAGE."

Setrakian loves the fact that she could start from scratch, rather than simply build on to an established template, and could make the enterprise "user-centric." One of her inspirations was the Bloomberg terminal, "where you can see what everyone says," rather than, say, one of the networks, where you're only likely to see their material.

Syria Deeply has two of its own reporters, neither in Syria, which is tough to penetrate for Western journalists. Instead, Syria Deeply has about two dozen Syrian correspondents inside the country. They write in Arabic, and Syria Deeply translates their material.

The site has an interesting business model. It has received some grants from foundations. But that's not the key to its survival. "People liked our website, and they asked us to build their websites," she says. "We do projects to keep going."

So once Arctic Deeply takes off, will there be more Deeplies in our future?